Hair
by MeyRevived2
Summary: A set of X drabbles. Manga based. SS and implied FS in later chapters.
1. Hinoto

**Disclaimer: **Do not own X. Clamp owns X. Sue not.

Many thanks to my beta, Cait-hime-sama-dono.

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**Hair**

Her hair turning completely white during one night's time is not something Hinoto cared to remember.

She had had premonition dreams before. She had been sitting at the Diet Building's basement weaving dreams for her country's politicians for many years. It was nothing new for her.

The night her hair turned white was the night that changed her whole perception of her gift of seeing the future.

It's not like she never saw horrible, tragic things in her dreams before, but most were relatively small tragedies such as the death of a politician's wife in a car crash or a stroke which completely neutralized one of the more significant ministers.

Not even her own mother's demise in a train accident left that mark on Hinoto and as she woke up from that specific dream she did not bother to tell her mother about it; this was, after all, the mother who pulled her out of school, locked her in her room with her dreams and snatched her away from her only friend and sister until her precious little Kanoe became her biggest despiser.

The dream Hinoto sank into with magnificent long jet torrents of hair and awoke from to intense anxiety's death-pale white locks was the dream of The Battle of the Apocalypse.

It was mere glimpses of short images yet each struck Hinoto with immense force. At once she came to realize the full extent of what it meant to have the end of the world hanging above her head like a pendulum.

She saw the faces of the Battle's warriors, she learned their names, the things they loved and hated the most, the people they held dear and the delicate web the world wove around them, and finally, she saw their demises.

The flashes of future Tokyo in destruction were enough to send Hinoto reeling. She looked upon so many corpse-scattered broken buildings that her eyes became accustomed to such sights of horrors until she no long pondered on notions such as 'what is that round shape? Is that a skull?', 'what are those white things sticking out in the dark red patch? Are those protruding broken bones?' and 'why is that man's face so black? The rats already got to him?'. She ceased to acknowledge the broken human figures were people who once moved and spoke and loved.

The small visions of Seals fighting Harbingers for the world's sake did not help to move Hinoto from the pit of emotional cold hollowness; each Seal and each Harbinger were heading towards a new hurt in that year.

There was nothing to console herself with in that dream and no tools to help her recover from it.

In the following days after the dream Hinoto could be found sitting in mental silence in her small shrine and slowly brush her pallid tresses.

She was too late in noticing the new arrival in her soul; her tool of coping with 1999, her other self.

When she came to fully know this sweetly smiling ambushing presence she wove a new dream, a new wish for her own future.

White hairs scattered on the floor, slowly covered by warm dark crimson.

(tbc)


	2. Seishiro

**Disclaimer: **Do not own X. Clamp owns X. Sue not.

Many, many thanks to my beta, Cait-hime-sama-dono

* * *

**Hair**

Seishiro has become very concerned about his facial hair in the last two years or so of his life. He realized he had a problem one mid noon as, while reading a short fax, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully (the map to his next victim's house came out blurry through the machine) he noted the obvious, thick, sharp bristles covering his cheeks, jaw line and neck.

He stopped his reading, placed the fax on his study's table and walked to the bathroom to inspect his face.

And there they were; visibly long bristles darkening half his face instead of the smooth soft skin he had this very morning after his regular shaving.

Thinking back on it, Seishiro realized that, indeed, for the past few years he has been shaving each morning. He never paid much attention to it because he knew that he is a healthy, testosterone-rich, adult male and that shaving every morning was a part of it.

Yet, hadn't he once shaved only once in a few days? Since the age of sixteen, when he first took a shaving knife into his palm to use it, he has been shaving one or twice a week.

When had it become every morning?

Perhaps it is his mental state at morning time that brought upon this ignorance to his own body's changes.

Seishiro goes to sleep very late every night and often has to wake up very early the next morning to research his next victims.

When he wakes he usually hits his snooze button a few times until he manages to fully wake up. Then, not until his first strong coffee of the morning is consumed, along with the day's first cigarette, in the neat garden chair on his large balcony, is Seishiro fully awake.

Being 'fully awake' does not mean that Seishiro is fully aware of things that aren't immediate dangers or severe changes in his environment; it merely means that his mind is no longer foggy with sleep. By the time he hits the shower and his usual morning preening (a ritual about where the hairbrush lays on the sink's marble edge and when to reach for the deodorant, etc.) Seishiro's mind is mostly occupied by plans of when he will be where today and what will he do.

And that is why he never noticed how often he needs to shave these days; his mind is too preoccupied. The coffee's stimulating effect probably has much to do with his morning train of thoughts' distraction from down to earth matters such as physical changes.

Seishiro is not very happy about having to shave twice a day; it cramps his style. If his roaming of the city takes longer than eight hours and the morning becomes noon and twilight, Seishiro turns from looking like a sleek, stylish dark man to a pathetic late 80s pop singer look-alike.

So he started carrying a small electric shaving machine in his coat pocket and takes more frequent glances at himself in random mirrors and shopping windows to check on his appearance.

Using public lavatories to re-shave himself did not turn so much into the slightly humiliating experience when caught by another patron of the men's room; it is enough to glance at his wristwatch neurotically with a pained enough expression of hurry and lack of time to pass as the average salary man, preparing himself for a meeting close at hand.

One evening, in a secluded shrub surrounded corner of a very intimate charming little park, Subaru noted this change as well. Seishiro had a particularly hectic day which included a rather heavily armed victim and another slippery, overly talkative prey, and Subaru's snaring included many an ofuda exchange before they reached this dark green haven.

"Hmmn," the onmyouji in his arms complains as Seishiro bites down his long sensuous white neck, "you're prickly, stay away from me, it hurts."

Seishiro shuts the other man up with a kiss.

The next morning, when Subaru's chin is covered by red marks and small scratches, Seishiro curses himself for an unwanted damage to his property which _he himself_ caused. The cute accusing glares Subaru stabs him with do not help to make the small wounds seem any better.

He needs to shave more often, especially before meeting his opposite star.

(tbc)


	3. Seiichiro

**Disclaimer: **Do not own X. Clamp owns X. Sue not.

Many, many great thanks to my beta, Cait-hime-sama….wait for it….-dono.

Also, many thanks to Kakyou-chan and Gray Wings, the lovely reveiwers

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**Hair**

Seiichiro knows he looks like a geek. He's very much aware of the fact that even in the thick river of homebound salary men flooding the streets and subway at rush-hour, he sticks out as one of the hard cases of it.

Shimako tried to tell him that it's his tweed suits and big soft eyes behind his glasses. Seiichiro nodded, completely accepting a woman's taste in style over his inferior masculine one, and tried to change what she noted.

But he liked tweed and soft earth colors. So he only stopped wearing completely mismatching ties and realized that a slightly humorous patterned tie will never stand out or look good with a tightly checkered jacket and pants. The ultimate death blow to Shimako's anti-tweed theory came when Yuka gurgled happily when caressing her father's suit's lapels. She clutched whatever fabric her chubby short fingers managed to grab and brought it into her mouth, sucking on it with an expression of ultimate happiness.

"Look sweetheart, Yuka-chan loves it!"

"She's in her oral phase, she'll put anything into her mouth, dear."

"O-oral phase?"

"Never mind. Wear whatever you want, dear, you look very handsome to me."

That was quite enough to keep Seiichiro in a bubble of happiness for a few weeks, sure that his current looks, as somewhat nerdy as they may be, suit his wife's taste and that she finds him very fetching in it, which is quite enough for him.

When he was nearly mugged by a group of knife-wielding teen delinquents who named him "four eyes" and many other unrepeatable phrases, the subject of which was what a pushover he appears to be, Seiichiro decided to resume his changes in appearance.

He tried contact lenses. The change brought about more than he imagined.

The biggest change seemed to be in the way women started treating him. They'd stare at him suggestively or simply flirt with him bluntly, ask him out on a date, and generally express a very obvious contentment with how he looks.

His fellow male workers treated him better as well, looking up to him as a leading figure and not an equal, younger workers treated him far more respectfully now and would tag along to him with sempai-admiring attitude.

Seiichiro, completely dumbfounded by this change, returned home after only one day of work without glasses, and took a long hard look in the mirror.

Sure, he was always a tall man with slightly more than average broad shoulders and chest. He was very keen of healthy food and exercise to keep himself fit for battle and, obviously, it showed. His hair is honey colored and softly wavy, which falls down charmingly on one side of his forehead. Seiichiro couldn't quite look himself in the mirror and exclaim that his face was handsome, but now that it lacked his glasses it seemed to have a mask removed from there. He did have big soft eyes and naturally well shaped eyebrows, features his relatively large spectacles blurred, and that must have been the biggest change.

The first time Seiichiro headed out to 'baby-sit' a mangaka into finally finishing his latest creation's chapter, leaving behind his contacts' kit, Seiichiro realized that contact lenses were not for him. He was, indeed, a very scatterbrained man, despite whatever discipline he forced himself to take on, and in this life on the road an editor like himself lives there is no room for small containers and liquid bottles the contacts came with. He assumed he could teach himself to get used to taking the kit with him, but he was an old dog, and old dogs can't learn new tricks.

Besides, Shimako thinks his bespectacled appearance is adorable and domestic and that's quite enough for him.

So Seiichiro forgot about it all until the day he came to meet the six other Seals.

There was something in the way Sorata ogled at him when his visit to Karen was spoken of that offended Seiichiro beyond what he expected.

Sorata was not an innocent gaping youth like Kamui and Yuzuriha still were, he was not blankly ignorant like Arashi; he knew what Karen's outfit meant, he knows what a 'soap land' is and he could add one and one together to realize what a visit to Karen's Flower could mean.

And still the youth stared at him in shock. His eyes did not read, "You, a married man, visited this woman's soap land!" It read, "_YOU _visited a_ woman _in a _soap land!_" The boy was stunned to think a nerd like him made it with a woman like Karen, soap lands' habits of currency exchange or not.

What? He didn't look man enough? He didn't look like a guy who could get a woman of Karen's standard? Ah, if only Sorata was not a toddler when Seiichiro courted Shimako; to see how the mostly average, borderline bore of the campus made the campus babe's head spin. Maybe then he wouldn't gawk at him with such surprise.

Is he seriously thinking like that! Shame on him. At his age, with his lovely wife and daughter, he shouldn't worry about stupid things like potential female conquests.

But the nagging thoughts of his appearance clung like a pestering insect. Is he really that geeky-looking?

He never wore anything Shimako didn't color coordinate for him, he straightened his back whenever he noticed his shoulders were drooping, he even bought new, more modernly designed glasses instead of the huge ones he had been wearing since college's fashion days.

It was his hair, one of the features which only helped to add to his glasses-less charm. It was wavy and dry and would gain too much volume whenever he didn't apply the creams Shimako donated to him from her cosmetics collection.

He was never able to comb it backwards neatly and smooth it stylishly like some of Marketing's more popular workers; his hair would bounce right back and fall all over in a mess. To cut it too short made him look too thin, to grow it long in his status was absolutely out of the question. Whenever he'd go to the barber and ask for something new his hairdresser would cringe and move around awkwardly. If Seiichiro could walk around wearing a hat he would, but no type of men's hat looked even relatively aesthetic on him.

Seiichiro was then stuck with the same haircut he had sported since grade school, the only one which suited him, and sadly, the very same haircut that deals the final blow to any attempts by Seiichiro to not look like a complete work consumed average salary man nerd.

Shimako waves off his self beratings and assures him that he looks very dashing to her and that's quite enough for him.

(tbc)


End file.
